It is Holy Week, the last week of Lent. I haven’t written about it much, but I hope that all off you who read this (the dozen or so actual people and not the bots) have been having a fruitful time of reflection and reorientation during Christianity’s yearly fast. For me, it has been a time of finding the dead things in my life and letting them have their grave. Some have been painful, to which my wife has bore witness, and some have been reinvigorating. None have been easy, but that is the path of Lent.
One of the hardest things to let die this Lent has been my cynicism. I will speak only for myself, but I am sure I am not the only one who has these thoughts. Cynicism has been almost a way of life for me over the last few years. After the elections of 2016, it threatened to become a worldview, replacing my own faith in God with the reality that no one really cares about anyone else, and so I shouldn’t either. I had to do it because life was becoming just too painful otherwise.
Too many tears for those who lived in fear.
Too much heartache when violence claimed another life.
Too much despair as people watched their hopes dashed by systems of injustice and dehumanization.
On Ash Wednesday, as I helped my wife with “Ashes-to-Go,” my cynicism’s transformation into a fortress was almost complete as I started to see the news of the massacre in Parkland, FL. I just knew that we would have to grieve again only for society to move on without any change. There would be the images of tears, huddled bodies crying out in pain, families torn apart by carnage, and then we would forget. Just one more scar on the heart turning it more to stone as we expressed our collective inability to care enough about life to endure the inconvenience of gun control.
Then, just a few days later, I was sitting on the couch reading the news when an alert came that some of the students were making speeches so I pulled up the live stream. Before the night was over, my face was streaked with tears and the fortress was beginning to crumble. I heard Delaney Tarr speak with courage about her newfound conviction. I was wrapped by Emma Gonzalez’s tearful declaration that they would no longer suffer “b.s.” Emotions flooded over me, but I was still sure that nothing would change. I remember how Sandy Hook had pulled at our heart strings. I still remember the parents pleading. I remember where I was when the Charleston shooting happened, and hearing President Obama sing at the memorial service. I even remember watching the news of Columbine, and then watching as the Assault Weapons Ban lapsed just five years later.
My emotions were deepened, and I appreciated that.
In the end, though, our policies would not change.
News started to come of a church in Pennsylvania having a service of blessing for AR-15s.
The NRA started to spin up the social messaging.
When the town hall happened, my wife and I watched together on the couch. As people who work as youth ministers, we cringed when Cameron Kasky went after Marco Rubio. We thought he was being too much the teenager we knew in our youth groups who thought they were just smarter than the adults. It took us awhile to recognize that what he was actually doing was teaching us that we do not have to put up with politicians not giving straight answers to straight questions. It chipped at my cynicism, but I still knew we were just going to move on and not do anything. That is just how things work in our country when it comes to guns. Maybe that Australian church sign was right; we do love our guns more than our children.
But last Saturday finally tore the walls completely down for me. Before, I had spirited conversations with friends about gun control, but those were just for us. Our society would not change. Hearing the voices on the stage in DC as I stood on Pennsylvania Avenue, however, fully broke me.
I wept and sang.
I heard the voice of Hope.
When Edna Chavez bore witness to the violence of south LA, when Naomi Wadler bore witness to the bodies of African-American women who are ignored, and when D’Angelo McDade preached the Gospel, proclaiming, “I stand for peace!,” I finally found hope. I hope you will follow the links to YouTube to watch their speeches. It will be well worth your time to hear the eloquence and courage of those who are going to lead us. For that is exactly what is about to happen.
Ever since the Parkland students began to speak out against the uniquely American violence that had arrived in their lives, verses of Scripture started to appear online. Often, it was “And a little child shall lead them.” Isaiah’s image of the redemption that comes from God is a powerful reminder that the trajectory of Creation was always intended to march towards peace. For me, however, another verse began to seep itself into my soul. A prophecy of God’s redemption from a later prophet, warning the people of pain to come and grab to follow.
Then afterward
I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.
Even on the male and female slaves,
in those days, I will pour out my spirit.”
Joel 2:28-29
When they spoke from that stage, we heard prophecy.
Not the cheap, fortune-teller, but the words of God for the people of God.
As we move through the last week of Lent, on our inevitable march to Good Friday and the death of Jesus, we must tear down our cynicism. Paul tells us that, “faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” Cynicism is not in the Bible.
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